It felt weird having this hanging between them. He could almost hear Minho breathing on the other side of the wall. And if he was being honest with himself, he really wanted to get up, knock on his door, and ask him more questions. It was next to impossible to fall asleep knowing that there could be so much to talk about.

To say that Kibum was surprised would be an understatement. There were so many memories replaying in his head about the years and years that they've spent together. Looking back, there were moments with Minho that the older man could recall as kind of strange and suddenly everything made sense.

"What's this?" 

"Everyone else has schedules tonight," Minho says. "I just thought that we could have dinner together."

Kibum puts his bag down on the couch as he eyed the younger man suspiciously. Just this morning they were fighting over the way the trash bags were tied, and suddenly there is a warm dinner waiting for him. It was beyond weird. 

"I'm sorry about losing my temper this morning. Are you hungry? Look," the younger man says, lifting up the lid of one of the serving pots. "It's pasta."

The older man stays rooted near the couch, almost not believing what was happening in front of him. His favorite meal with his favorite drink after a long day from the one person that he least expected? This was almost too good to be true. 

"I didn't poison it, I swear," Minho says, being able to read the older's body language. "If you don't eat it now, it's going to get cold and you hate cold pasta."

He couldn't argue with that.

Kibum walks slowly towards the table as his eyes dart over the place setting. The table was gorgeous. There were lilies as the centerpiece and it was carefully laid out with dinnerware that he had never seen before. He looks up at Minho with a confused look on his face, almost as if to ask him if he was being serious. 

"I told you I was sorry," the young man says. "Sit down. You're making me anxious."

They both take seats opposite one another and prepare to dig in. Kibum didn't want to admit it but the food looked really good, and it could not have come at a better time. He was starving after that variety show taping.

There was something different about Minho tonight, though. Kibum leans his head to the side, trying to figure out what it was. 

"You had a haircut," the older man says, reaching for the pasta. It smelled really good and he wanted to take a bite so bad. Restraining himself from showing Minho how excited he was to eat was a task all on its own.

The younger man ruffles his hair and looks down in embarrassment. "Uh, yeah... They made me cut it. I feel like it's too short, though. I guess it's going to take a little getting used to."

Kibum twirls the pasta on his fork, zeroed in on getting the perfect portion. He shrugs his shoulders in acknowledgment of the young man. "Really? They did? Yeah, it's different. But it suits you. You look good."

The older man did not see it, but Minho's face turns crimson quicker than Kibum slurped the pasta into his mouth. "You really think so?"

Kibum rolls his eyes at the question. "You know you always look good. It's our job to look good. Jinki always looks good, Jonghyun always looks good... And Taemin... Well, it's harder for him and that face of his, but he tries. I always look good too. It's all just facts, Minho."

"Right," the young man says, reaching for the pasta himself. "You're right. You're handsome even when you don't mean to be. Not to say that handsome is the only thing you are. You're also intelligent, creative, and talented... Strong-willed and determined... Obviously."

"Yeah... Obviously," the older man replies weakly. Kibum was never one to shy away from a love fest but it felt weird coming from Minho.

As time passed, Kibum was able to pick up on little things that told him that this was no spur-of-the-moment dinner. Minho had prepared really well for tonight. He was wearing some of his best clothes--not the ones that stylist Noonas fix up for them... The stuff he really owns. And Kibum knows that the company didn't really care about their hair unless they were preparing for a comeback. Minho had always liked it when his hair was a bit on the longer side, and every member knew that. So, the haircut was strange. Even the fact that he cooked something, let alone something that Kibum liked, was even stranger. He recognized the dinnerware from Taeyeon and the girls' dorm and that means he actually borrowed plates from other people to make a decent setting. And where did the flowers come from? Strange. Really strange. 

At second glance, you could see beads of sweat dripping down the sides of Minho's face, even if the air conditioner was on. The younger man was being extremely fidgety and could not stop wiping his hands on his thighs, as if they were sweating too. He couldn't even look Kibum in the eye for more than two seconds. Something was definitely off.  

"Just tell me already."

"H-huh? T-tell you?" Minho asks as he drops his fork on his plate in shock. "What do you mean, tell you? I have nothing to tell you... Tell you what?"

"Whatever it is you're buttering me up for. Did you ruin one of my shirts again because of your never-ending quest for the best fabric softener? Or did you scratch one of my good pans? Oh, crap, you didn't knock over any of my skincare, did you? Please don't tell me you did. Even if this pasta is really good, you're gonna have to buy me a new one--that's the rule. The dorm has rules for a reason. Don't try and bribe me with a meal."

Kibum looks at him closely, but Minho was totally and completely frozen in place. He seemed scared stiff by something, and Kibum's heart got soft at the thought that Minho might be scared of him.

"Oh my God, fine. Okay, Minho. Whatever it is that got ruined, it's fine. Just buy me something I like and I won't get mad. I'll text you the exact thing I want. Get it for me and we'll call it even."

"Huh? No... No, nothing like that... It's nothing like that," Minho says, a wave of relief coming over his face. "I mean... I just... No, nothing. It's nothing. Never mind. There's nothing."

"No? Really? Nothing?" Kibum says, bringing another fork-full of pasta to his mouth. "It seemed like you were getting ready to tell me something. Are you sure?"

"Y-yeah..." Minho replies, smiling at the way the older man's mouth was filling up with food. He looked completely cute with his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth puckered up like a blowfish. "I just wanted to have dinner with you. I like seeing you eat."

Kibum eyes him from the corner of his eye, not really convinced but the look on Minho's face persuades him to let it go. "Fine. I'm not the type to get upset over a free meal. But you have to teach me how to make this. It's annoying how good it is."

"He never ate anything," Kibum recalls, whispering to himself in the dark. "The entire time, he didn't eat anything. Oh my God... He wanted to tell me then."

How could have been so dense for all of these years? Of course, Minho loved him. He already tried so many times to say so.

Kibum drifted off to sleep that night with a smile on his face, feeling completely safe by the thought that he was loved.

*****

Being up at the crack of dawn wasn't something that he usually did but it was next to impossible to fall asleep after that confession. Minho's heart hadn't stopped racing ever since Kibum knocked at his door. It wasn't just his heart though... His mind was hard at work, too. What did Kibum mean when he said all those things? Did he have hope? Should he even be thinking this way? Even though he was afraid of the answer, he was willing to find out. 

No one else is awake yet but he is grateful to be up and do something with his hands. He was pretty sure that these scrambled eggs weren't going to taste good. Cooking should never be done in the state he was in. But he really didn't have anything else to do. Minho furiously mixes the eggs in the pan--the unfortunate receiver of his mounting anxiety.

"Good morning," Kibum says, his voice cutting through the silence. Minho freezes as he watches the older man stumble out onto the hallway in his pajamas. 

Kibum usually hates it when someone other than him is moving around in the kitchen but considering what happened last night, he decides to just let it slide. He walks to the refrigerator to get some water before heading over to sit on one of the stools.

"Good morning, Kibum..."

Kibum groans as he massages his neck with his hand, having slept on it the wrong way. He hoped that the pain wouldn't haunt him the whole day. He dreaded the thought of having to suffer through the day's schedules in this kind of pain. 

The younger man can't help but let his eyes drift to Kibum seated in front of him, stretching his neck with his eyes closed and breathing deeply. The way that the older man stretched his neck out and pursed his lips mesmerized the younger. Minho sighs as the scene in front of him makes his heart skip a beat. He was used to it though. There's not much of a difference; today was just another day of pining for Kibum... Only this time, they both knew it.

Minho takes a plate and puts in front of Kibum, wordlessly setting on it his less-than-perfect scrambled eggs and some pieces of sausage. 

The clink of the dinnerware makes Kibum snap his eyes open and was surprised to see that Minho had prepared the exact thing that he had been craving for. "Thanks," he says. The older man stares down at his plate, for the first time taking notice of what had been just done for him, first thing in the morning at that. 

He never used to think about it, but now it couldn't help but weigh on his mind. How did Minho know that he had been thinking of this exact meal since he opened his eyes? He grabs a fork and takes a tentative bite out of the eggs. 

"Did you sleep well?" Minho says, taken aback by his own question. This was something that he wondered about every day but never had to courage to outrightly ask Kibum about. No harm done now. There was no reason for him to pretend anymore now that Kibum knew how he felt.

"Huh?" the older man replies. 

"Your neck," Minho responds, pointing at Kibum's neck. "It's bothering you, isn't it?"

"Oh... Yeah... I must have slept on it the wrong way."

"Sleeping on your stomach does that sometimes," Minho says, going to the refrigerator and fetching something from the freezer door. "Here. This will help. I'll pack some to take with us too so you can use them in the van--"

"How did you know I slept on my stomach?"

"You always do, especially when you've had a tiring day... You told me once that it was the way your family let you sleep when you were a kid. I know it comforts you at the end of the day," Minho replies, being too shy to even look up from the kitchen counter.

It amazed Kibum how he could have possibly remembered such a small detail about him--especially since he didn't even remember bringing it up anyway. But he was right; Minho was absolutely right. 

From the look of things, there wasn't much that was going to change between them. He knew that Minho didn't want to disturb Kibum's way of life by being too showy of his emotions, even if it was already out in the open. He was too good of a guy to push his feelings on Kibum that way. If the older man didn't do anything now, this was all they were going to have--early morning breakfasts and ice packs. But the truth was, Kibum was really interested in seeing if there could be something beyond just this. It became clear that he would have to let Minho know that he wanted things to change. 

"Sit down," Kibum says as he brings the ice pack up to his neck. "Eat with me."

Minho's heart starts to beat a little faster at the invitation. He prepares a serving for himself and sits on one of the bar stools beside Kibum. There was nothing else the younger man wanted to look at except for the food on his plate but he could feel Kibum staring at him intently.

"So that's it? You're just going to pretend as if nothing happened?"

"No..." Minho says, his voice barely audible. He stuffs his mouth full of food in hopes that Kibum would leave him alone, even if just for a few seconds. After years of hiding what he felt, he really wasn't prepared to talk so candidly about it so soon. 

"Well? Aren't you even going to ask me out?"

If he was nervous before, his brain was now in an all-out panic. He coughs as he tries to swallow the food in his mouth without even chewing it properly. "What?"

"Unless I was hallucinating, you confessed your love to me, didn't you? Don't you want to take me out on a proper date?"

"Do you want me to?" Minho asks shyly, a lump in his throat forming. This was turning out to possibly be the happiest day of his life. 

"Just ask."

It isn't lost on Minho that this is the only real shot that he is probably going to get. In all those years, he has never had an opening as wide as this one. He psyches himself up as reminds himself that he had been waiting for this moment for so long and knew exactly what to say. Minho takes a deep breath and turns to finally look at Kibum for the first time that morning. 

"Okay... Kibum... I've had a lot of time to think about this and there's this place that I've been dreaming of taking you... Would you like to go out with me sometime?" 

The look in Minho's eyes grabbed Kibum's attention. He had never seen this side of the young man before. He was assertive and confident. He seemed determined but gentle at the same time. It surprised him but Kibum suddenly felt a dozen butterflies starting to rise up from his stomach. He was starting to see his friend with new eyes.

"I thought you would never ask."